Voice book device and method of formation

ABSTRACT

Disclosed herein is a voice book device. The voice book device includes voice book and a book support. The voice book contains various pieces of information. The book support includes a printed circuit board and a housing. The printed circuit board has a storage unit, an optical sensor unit, a decoder unit, a voice output unit, and a control unit. The housing includes the printed circuit board. Each page of the voice book consists of a transparent part and a contents part. An optical reflector is formed on the transparent part and one or more optical sensors are disposed in the book support, and the optical reflectors and the optical sensors are arranged in a one-to-one mapping relationship so that the pages of the voice book are automatically recognized by cooperation operation between the optical reflectors and the optical sensors.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION

This application is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No.10/142,962, filed on May 13, 2002, now U.S. Pat. No. 6,865,367 B2, thesubject matter of which is incorporated in its entirety by referenceherein.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

1. Field of the Invention

The present invention relates generally to a voice book device forreproducing the contents of a book including sentences and backgroundmusic, and more particularly to a voice book device, in which each pageof a voice book is comprised of a transparent part with one opticalreflector and a contents part, thereby eliminating needs for throughholes and magnets formed in the voice book.

2. Description of the Prior Art

In general, both pictures and sentences appear on each page of aconventional children's book, so a child associates a picture with asentence and a parent reads the sentences to him, thereby allowing thechild to study language. The conventional children's book isdisadvantageous in that a person such as a parent must read the book fora child. In order to overcome such a disadvantage of the conventionalchildren's book, voice books and output devices have been developed.However, conventional voice books and their output devices provide onlya simple function of outputting the cry of an animal when a user pushesthe animal on a voice book. Japanese Utility Model Laid-open No.Hei2-62464 published on May 10, 1990 discloses a voice book outputdevice that recognizes a corresponding page of a voice book using a barcode reader and plays the voice recording of corresponding sentences.However, it is difficult for a child having low cognitive ability to usethe bar code reader. Additionally, Korean Utility Model Laid-open No.96-38427 published on Dec. 18, 1996 discloses an apparatus in which aplurality of dots are formed on each page of a voice book and a page isrecognized by sensing a corresponding dot with a handset having anoptical sensor. Korean Utility Model Laid-open No. 96-38427 has the sameproblem as Japanese Utility Model Laid-open No. Hei2-62464.

Accordingly, there have been developed voice book devices that canautomatically recognize their pages without requiring any operation by achild and output the contents of corresponding pages of the books asvoice. Korean Utility Model Laid-open No. 1999-21943 published on Jun.25, 1999 discloses a voice book and output device, in which throughholes are formed on the pages of a voice book and optical sensors aremounted on a book support at positions corresponding to the positions ofthe through holes, and a page recognizing device in which contactswitches are mounted on the pages of a voice book and pages arerecognized by the on/off operation of a contact switch carried out bythe pressure of pages. For the voice book and output device usingoptical sensors, the through holes must be perforated through each pageof the voice book and even through holes of a number corresponding tothe number of the last page of the voice book must be formed on the lastpage, so the voice book is damaged and easily torn, thereby degradingthe function of the voice book. For the device using contact switches,contact switches must be mounted on each page of a voice book, so thereoccur problems that the manufacturing cost of the voice book isincreased, the contact switches are easily detached from the pages andthe pages are not recognized by the non-operation of the contactswitches due to lack of pressure.

Korean Utility Model Laid-open No. 20-178292 discloses a device in whichmagnets are mounted on each page of a voice book, lead switches aredisposed in a book support at positions corresponding to the positionsof magnets, and pages are recognized by the cooperation of the magnetsand lead switches. For this device, the magnets must be mounted on eachpage of the voice book, so the manufacturing cost of the device isincreased, the magnets are easily detached from the pages and the pagesare not recognized by errors in cooperative operation between themagnets and lead switches.

In order to solve such problems, Korean Patent No. 10-317984 discloses adevice in which magnets are disposed in each page of a voice book andhall sensors are mounted on a book support, thereby automaticallyrecognizing the pages. However, this device also has problems caused bythe disposition of magnets in each page of the voice book.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

Accordingly, the present invention has been made keeping in mind theabove problems occurring in the prior art, and an object of the presentinvention is to provide a voice book device, in which a transparent partwith an optical reflector is formed in each page of a voice book and oneor more optical sensors are disposed in a book support, so needs forthrough holes and magnets can be eliminated, thereby preventing thevoice book from being damaged and torn to facilitate the maintenance ofthe voice book, and reducing the manufacturing cost of the voice bookdevice.

Another object of the present invention is to provide a voice bookdevice, which is provided with a positioning means for securing therelative positioning of a voice book and a book support so as to preventerrors in the recognition of pages performed by an optical reflectorformed in each page of the voice book and optical sensors disposed inthe book support.

In order to accomplish the above object, the present invention providesa voice book device, which comprises a voice book containing variouspieces of information, and a book support, comprising a printed circuitboard comprised of a storage unit for storing contents of the voice bookin the form of digital voice data, an optical sensor unit forrecognizing pages of the voice book, a decoder unit for receivingdigital voice data stored in the storage unit and demodulating thedigital voice data into analog voice signals, a voice output unit forreceiving signals outputted from the decoder unit and outputting thesignals, and a control unit operated in conjunction with the opticalsensor unit to read digital voice data corresponding to desired pages ofthe voice book from the storage unit and to transmit the digital voicedata to the decoder unit, and a housing including the printed circuitboard; wherein each page of the voice book is comprised of a transparentpart and a contents part; wherein an optical reflector is formed on thetransparent part and one or more optical sensors are disposed in thebook support, and the optical reflectors and the optical sensors arearranged in a one-to-one mapping relationship so that the pages of thevoice book are automatically recognized by cooperation operation betweenthe optical reflectors and the optical sensors.

Preferably, the voice book device further comprises first and secondpositioning means, the first positioning means being formed on the voicebook and the second positioning means being formed on the book supportso that the voice book is correctly positioned on the book support toallow the optical reflectors of the voice book to be positioned in aone-to-one mapping relationship with the optical sensors of the booksupport.

Preferably, the pages of the voice book are bound at one side edge ofevery page of the voice book by a coil, and a groove is formed across acenter of the book support to accommodate the bound portions of thevoice book.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The above and other objects, features and other advantages of thepresent invention will be more clearly understood from the followingdetailed description taken in conjunction with the accompanyingdrawings, in which:

FIG. 1 is a perspective view showing a voice book device with a voicebook separated from a book support in accordance with the presentinvention;

FIG. 2 is a block diagram of a well-known drive circuit applied to thebook support of the present invention;

FIGS. 3 a to 3 c are perspective views of the voice book of the presentinvention;

FIG. 4 is a perspective view showing the voice book device of thepresent invention with the voice book placed on the book support; and

FIG. 5 is a cross section of the voice book device of the presentinvention taken along line A—A of FIG. 4.

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS

Reference now should be made to the drawings, in which the samereference numerals are used throughout the different drawings todesignate the same or similar components.

FIG. 1 is a perspective view showing a voice book device with a voicebook separated from a book support in accordance with the presentinvention. FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing the circuit of a PCBincluded in the device support, which is well known to those skilled inthe art.

The voice book device is comprised of a voice book 200 and a booksupport 100. As shown in FIG. 2, the book support 100 has a PCB thatincludes a drive circuit. The drive circuit generally used in a voiceoutput device is well known, and is comprised of a storage unit 5, anoptical sensor unit 1, a decoder unit 7, a voice output unit 9 and acontrol unit 3.

The storage unit 5 stores the contents of the voice book, and isgenerally a built-in or portable memory. The optical sensor unit 1 is ameans for recognizing the pages of the voice book, and is generally aphotoelectric transducer such as a photosensor. There can be employedboth a type of sensor having a light emitting element and a lightreceiving element (which can be used in reflection mode described below)and another type of sensor only having a light receiving element (whichcan be used in transmission mode). The decoder unit 7 is a means forreceiving digital voice data stored in the storage unit 5 anddemodulating the digital voice data into analog voice signals. The voiceoutput unit 9 is a means for receiving output signals from the decoderunit 7 and outputting the signals. The control unit 3 serves to controlthe entire operation of the system including an operation of readingdigital voice data corresponding to a page of the voice book from thestorage unit 5 and transmitting the digital voice data to the decoderunit 7 in cooperation with the optical sensor unit 1. The control unit 3is generally implemented as a microcomputer.

The book support 100 is comprised of an upper support plate 110 and alower support plate 130. Element 300 depicts a plug-in circuit. Aconstruction in which a plurality of optical sensors PS1 to PS6 arearranged on the lower support part 130 to correspond to the number ofthe pages of the voice book is identical with a correspondingconstruction disclosed in Korean Utility Model Laid-open No. 1999-21943,so a description of the construction is omitted herein.

In accordance with the present invention, a semi-cylindrical groove 150is longitudinally formed along folded portions of the upper and lowersupport plate 110 and 130 at which the upper and lower support plates110 and 130 are contiguous with each other. A second positioning meansis formed on the lower support plate 130 in the shape of protrusions 136and 138. Stepped portions 132 and 134 are formed along the upper andlower ends of the lower support plate 130. These constructions aid inpreventing errors in the positioning of the voice book and therecognition of a page of the voice book that will be described below.

FIGS. 3 a to 3 d are views showing a voice book in accordance with thepresent invention. Generally, a voice book 200 is comprised of two frontand back outer pages and a plurality of inner pages. In this embodiment,the voice book 200 has a total of six pages S1 to S6, but the voice book200 of the present invention is not restricted to an above-describednumber of pages.

The voice book 200 is comprised of pages S1 to S6. Each of the pages S1to S6 is comprised of a transparent part 210S1 to 210S6 and a contentspart 240S1 to 240S6. An optical reflector BP1 to DB6 is disposed on eachtransparent part 210S1 to 210S6 to correspond to the optical sensors PS1to PS6. Sentences and pictures are shown on the contents parts 240S1 to240S6. A first positioning means is formed at the upper and lowerportions of each page S1 to S6 of the voice book 200 in the shape ofinsertion holes 220S1 to 220S6 and 222S1 to 222S6. The pages S1 to S6 ofthe voice book 200 are bound by a coil at their edges. In this case, theinsertion holes 220S1 to 220S6 and 222S1 to 222S6 do not need to beformed through all the pages S1 to S6, and the first positioning meanscan have any construction that enables the correct positioning of thevoice book (for example, an insertion hole can be formed only in a backpage).

The transparent parts 210S1 to 210S6 are formed of any material thatallows light to pass therethrough, and, generally, of polyester orpolypropylene. The reflectors BP1 to BP6 are made of any material thatallows light to be reflected. The reflectors BP1 to BP6 are generallyformed by printing white spots in a screen printing or indirect printingmethod.

When the voice book shown in FIG. 3 a is normally placed on the booksupport 100, six optical reflectors BP1 to BP6 are positioned just overthe optical sensors PS1 to PS6 in a one-to-one mapping relationship. Insuch a case, light emitted from the light emitting elements of all theoptical sensor PS to PS6 is reflected by all the optical reflectors BP1to BP6, the front page S1 is sensed by the-above described circuit, andthe contents of the front page S1 are outputted as voice. This case isreferred to as “reflection mode”. When the front page S1 is turned tocause the first inner page S2 to appear as shown in FIG. 3 b, fiveoptical reflectors BP2 to BP6 are positioned in a one-to-one mappingrelationship with five optical sensors PS2 to PS6. Accordingly, onlylight emitted from the five optical sensors PS2 to PS6 of a total of sixoptical sensors PS1 to PS6 is reflected by the five optical reflectorsBP2 to BP6, reflected light is sent back to the five optical sensors PS2to PS6, and the first inner page S2 is sensed by the above-describedcircuit. When the first inner page S2 is turned to cause the secondinner page S3 to appear as shown in FIG. 3 c, four optical reflectorsBP3 to BP6 are positioned in a one-to-one mapping relationship with fouroptical sensors PS3 to PS6. Accordingly, only light emitted from thefour optical sensors PS3 to PS6 of a total of six optical sensors PS1 toPS6 is reflected by the optical reflectors BP3 to BP6, reflected lightis sent back to the four optical sensors PS3 to PS6, and the secondinner page S3 is sensed by the above-described circuit. If there areemployed optical sensors having only light receiving elements forsensing outside light, the inventive concept of the present inventioncan be implemented without hindrance. Referring to FIG. 3 a, light sentfrom the outside is reflected by the optical reflectors BP1 to BP6,thereby preventing the light from entering the optical sensors PS1 toPS6. Accordingly, the front page S1 is sensed and the contents of thefront page S1 are outputted as voice. This mode is referred to as“transmission mode”. The remaining pages can be sensed in the same wayas described above.

Hereinafter, with reference to FIG. 5, a construction for securing therelative positioning of the voice book 200 and the book support 100 isdescribed.

As described above, six pairs of insertion holes 220S1 to 220S6 and222S1 to 222S2 are formed through the pages of the voice book 200 as thefirst positioning means, while two protrusions 136 and 138 are formed onthe upper and lower portions of the book support 100 as the secondpositioning means. When the voice book 200 is placed on the book support100, the protrusions 136 and 138 are inserted into the insertion holes220S1 to 220S6 and 222S1 to 222S6. Additionally, the neighboring edgesof the voice book 100 are bound by the coil 230, and the groove 150 islongitudinally formed along folded portions of the upper and lowersupport plates 110 and 130. As a result, when the voice book 200 isplaced on the book support 100, the coil 230 is positioned in the groove150. With such a construction, there can be prevented errors in sensingthe pages of the voice book 200 that may occur while the voice book 200is placed on the book support 100. Moreover, in accordance with thepresent invention, the stepped portions 132 and 134 are formed along theupper and lower ends of the lower support plate 130, so the moving ofthe voice book 200 can be prevented by the stepped portions 132 and 134.

As described above, the present invention provides a voice book device,in which a transparent part with an optical reflector is formed in eachpage of a voice book and one or more optical sensors are disposed in abook support, so needs for through holes and magnets can be eliminated,thereby preventing the voice book from being damaged and torn tofacilitate the maintenance of the voice book and reducing themanufacturing cost of the voice book device.

In addition, the present invention is to provide a voice book device,which is provided with positioning means for securing the relativepositioning of a voice book and a book support, so there can beprevented errors in the recognition of pages.

Although the preferred embodiments of the present invention have beendisclosed for illustrative purposes, those skilled in the art willappreciate that various modifications, additions and substitutions arepossible, without departing from the scope and spirit of the inventionas disclosed in the accompanying claims.

1. A page for use in a voice book device, comprising: at least onetransparent part and at least one contents part, wherein at least oneoptical reflector unit is provided on the at least one transparent part;and at least one area located on said page used to position said page ina voice book devices, wherein said voice book device comprises a voicebook containing various pieces of information and a book support, saidvoice book device further comprising: a printed circuit board comprisedof a storage unit for storing contents of the voice book in the form ofdigital voice data; an optical sensor unit for recognizing pages of thevoice book; a decoder unit for receiving digital voice data stored inthe storage unit and demodulating the digital voice data into analogvoice signals; a voice output unit for receiving signals outputted fromthe decoder unit and outputting the signals; a control unit operated inconjunction with the optical sensor unit to read digital voice datacorresponding to desired pages of the voice book from the storage unitand to transmit the digital voice data to the decoder unit; and ahousing including the printed circuit board, wherein each page of thevoice book is comprised of a transparent part and a contents part, andwherein one or more optical sensors are disposed in the book support,and optical reflectors of said optical reflector unit and the opticalsensors of said optical sensor unit are arranged in a one-to-one mappingrelationship so that the pages of the voice book are automaticallyrecognized by cooperation operation between the optical reflectors andthe optical sensors.
 2. The page recited in claim 1, wherein saidoptical sensors are photoelectric transducers.
 3. The page recited inclaim 1, wherein said at least one transparent part comprises apolyester or polypropylene material.
 4. A method of forming a voice bookdevice with a book support, said method comprising: providing at leastone page for said voice book; forming said at least one page with atleast one transparent part and at least one contents part; forming atleast one optical reflector on said at least one transparent part;forming at least one optical sensor in said book support of the voicebook device; and arranging said at least one optical reflector and saidat least one optical sensor in a one-to-one mapping relationship so thatthe pages of the voice book are automatically recognized by cooperationoperation between the at least one optical reflector and the at leastone optical sensor, providing a printed circuit board with at least onestorage unit for storing contents of the voice book in the form ofdigital voice data; providing at least one decoder unit for receivingdigital voice data stored in the at least one storage unit anddemodulating the digital voice data into analog voice signals; providingat least one voice output unit for receiving the analog voice signalsoutputted from the at least one decoder unit and outputting the analogvoice signals; providing at least one control unit operated inconjunction with the at least one optical sensor unit to read digitalvoice data corresponding to pages of the voice book from the at leastone storage unit and to transmit the digital voice data to the at leastone decoder unit; wherein said printed circuit board is formed in ahousing.
 5. The method of claim 4, further comprising: forming firstpositioning means on the voice book; forming second positioning means onthe book support; and positioning said voice book on said book supportby said first and second positioning means to allow the at least oneoptical reflector of the voice book to be in a one-to-one mappingrelationship with said at least one optical sensor.